The Last Days of Lemuria, page 14
part #5 of Perry Rhodan Lemuria Series
Finally Ronnok announced: "Reemergence into normal space in ten minutes."
Bardon was startled out of his musings and with a push of a button on his control console he set off the alarm that called the heavy cruiser's entire crew to their stations. He didn't want to run any risks. No one knew what was waiting for them in the Radon System.
The minutes passed slowly and finally the KOLOSCH returned to the normal universe. The pounding roar of the impulse engines and the vibrating hum of the Hyperdim converter abruptly died away. Tense silence returned to the bridge. On the main vidscreen gleamed a yellow Apsu-type sun, circled by a dozen planets.
"Active and passive hyperdetection running," Palanker said into the silence. After a few moments, he added with audible relief in his voice, "No enemy ships in the system."
Bardon let his breath out with a hiss and ordered Shadne to make com contact with Radon, the fourth planet. The connection was quickly established and after the commander had spoken with a high representative of the planetary government, he was granted permission to set the refugees down at Radon's main spaceport.
Again the equatorial rim's impulse engines thundered as the KOLOSCH headed for the fourth planet at top speed. After a brutally abrupt braking maneuver it landed at the spaceport. Bardon personally assisted the crew with the disembarking of the refugees, urging them to hurry, only too well aware that any additional second of delay could have catastrophic consequences.
Finally the last refugees had left the KOLOSCH and the heavy cruiser took off to pick up the second contingent from Torbutan. Only a few hundred thousand kilometers from Radon, the ship transitioned into semispace and set course for the Torbu System.
The return flight put Bardon in a state of nervous tension, gnawed at by concern that the atom fire might have progressed faster than anticipated and reached the time machine before they could take it away. Or that the Beasts had returned to the Torbu System to finish their bloody work.
But when the KOLOSCH dropped down out of semispace in the system of the double stars Torbu One and Torbu Two and searched surrounding space with active and passive hyperdetection, his tension gave way to deep relief.
"No Beast ships in the system," First Officer Palanker announced.
Bardon had Shadne put him in touch with Levian Paronn. The Technad seemed tired when his face appeared on the main monitor, but unshakable determination still burned in his eyes.
"We have successfully transported the refugees to Radon," Bardon reported, "and we are now landing to take the second contingent on board."
"Excellent," Paronn replied. "The refugees are already waiting at the spaceport. The disassembly of the time machine is proceeding according to plan and will be completed when the KOLOSCH returns from its flight."
Bardon nodded, satisfied. Then his expression darkened. "What about the Beast?"
"We haven't heard any more from it." Paronn laughed roughly. "Apparently it's still sitting in that cave. Well, the atom fire will solve that problem."
"But if it came from the future ... " Bardon objected, hesitating. "Perhaps it could provide us with valuable information."
The Technad waved his hand dismissively. "I don't have enough men to take a heavily armed Beast prisoner. And once we've carried out our time mission, that Beast won't have any role left to play." He terminated the connection.
Bardon sat there thoughtfully as the KOLOSCH headed for Torbutan and dove into its atmosphere, wondering if Paronn had made the right decision. The Beast in the red battlesuit was an unknown factor. On the other hand, the Technad was correct. Taking a Beast prisoner was not child's play. Many good men and women would die in the attempt. And why go to the trouble when the enemy would die in the atom fire anyway?
The KOLOSCH touched down at the spaceport. The refugees were crowded at the edge of the grounds and streamed onto the landing field as the outer hatches slid open.
Bardon waited impatiently until the last refugees had come on board, then gave the order to take off. The KOLOSCH rose on its antigrav lifters and shot through the cloud deck. White clouds of water vapor swirled around the heavy cruiser and fell beneath it. In the east, huge columns of smoke reached into the reddened sky and the ashes of the atom fire colored the horizon black.
At that moment, an alarm shrilled through the control center.
"Detection!" Palanker cried. His face had suddenly gone corpse-white. "A Beast battlecruiser has materialized in Sector One-Blue-A. Distance 30,000 kilometers ... on intercept course!"
A clump of ice formed at the pit of Bardon's stomach. No! he thought in horror. Not here, not now, when we're so close to our goal!
"Enemy ship activating weapon systems," Palanker added tonelessly. "Massive Hyperdim readings ... interval cannons being charged ... "
"Activate semispace shield," Bardon ordered.
"Semispace shield activated," the First Officer confirmed. "Output at one-hundred percent."
Helot, the weapons officer, cleared her throat. "All weapons systems charged and ready to fire," she said hoarsely.
Bardon turned to the navigator. "Ronnok, we must leave the atmosphere as quickly as possible and get ourselves well clear of the planet."
Ronnok merely nodded and increased the thrust of the impulse engines. A deafening roar filled the control center as the KOLOSCH reached the upper layers of the atmosphere and continued to accelerate. Ionized gases made the protective semispace field shine a livid red. On the main vidscreen the detection echoes of the Beast ship came ever closer.
We won't make it! Bardon thought desperately. We're too slow, much too slow ...
At that distance, they couldn't use their counterpole cannons without endangering the planet. With only the thermal, impulse, and disintegrator guns they had no chance against the overwhelmingly superior enemy.
The glow of the ionized gases darkened and the atmosphere grew thinner as the KOLOSCH continued to climb and the surface of Torbutan, still being consumed by the atom fire, fell away beneath it.
"Enemy ship in firing range in one minute!" Palanker exclaimed.
"Open fire with the thermal, impulse, and disintegrator cannons," Bardon ordered. His voice sounded raw, distorted by deathly fear.
He thought of the one thousand refugees on board, of the women and children, innocent like his wife and his own children, and groaned in unconscious anger. They must not lose this battle! If the KOLOSCH was destroyed, that was the end of everything. Then Levian Paronn and the time machine on Torbutan would be burned to nothing. Then there was no hope left for the Great Tamanium.
"Enemy ship targeted," he heard Helot's voice say through the pounding roar of the impulse engines. "I'll open fire as soon as it's in point-blank range." She was silent for a moment. "I request permission to use the counterpole cannons, Commander."
Bardon shook his head emphatically. They were still too close to the planet. The radiation front of the exploding one-hundred-megaton fusion bomb would roast the Lemurians in the Suen base alive. No, the counterpole cannons were not an option. They had to fly deeper into space ... if the enemy would let them.
The oncoming Beast ship was now clearly visible on the main monitor. A black sphere some one-hundred meters in diameter with a flattened top and bottom. The propulsion systems were located in the lower area, flickeringly enveloped in the energy cocoon of the paratron shield.
Just one ship—but it was enough to turn all their hopes and magnificent plans to dust.
"Enemy in point-blank range!" Palanker cried.
At the same moment, Helot opened fire from all beam cannons. Bolts of green, yellow, and red energy stabbed from the KOLOSCH's guns and struck the Beast ship's shield, but the characteristic crack-like channels diverted the destructive forces into hyperspace.
The black ship was not even slowed. From the darkness of space it hurtled down at the KOLOSCH and returned fire. Bundled impulse beams impacted the KOLOSCH's semispace field and made it glow like the atom fire that raged on Torbutan. The barrage continued. The first fine structural cracks appeared in the energy shield.
"Shield output at seventy percent and falling," Palanker announced. "I'm channeling more energy into the field."
As the shrieking and howling of the storage banks pumping the new energy into the semispace field rose from the belly of the ship, the roaring of the engines lessened. The cruiser's power output was limited. To stabilize the shield, they had to temporarily forego thrust.
Bardon clenched his teeth and looked at the main monitor. They had still not put enough distance between them and the planet to use the counterpole cannons, their only weapon that even theoretically could injure their merciless opponent. They needed at least ten more minutes to reach the minimal safety margin ... and in this situation, ten minutes were an eternity.
The KOLOSCH continued to fire all beam cannons while the Beast ship responded with impulse fire. For a moment Bardon had the irrational hope that the enemy, for some reason, didn't have any interval guns available. A second later though, Palanker's warning cry destroyed that hope.
"Hyperdim echoes growing stronger ... maximum energy signature ... preparing for interval fire!"
Bardon clutched the armrests of his chair and sent a silent prayer to the old gods of Lemur. He thought again of his wife Jercy and his children, and grief tightened his throat. He instinctively sensed that nothing and no one could save them now. This was the end of all yearnings and dreams.
Then the five-dimensional impact front of the interval fire slammed into the KOLOSCH's energy shield. The red-shining semispace field twisted under the impact of the violent force. The howling and shrieking of the storage banks swelled in an unbearable crescendo that hurt like a knife cut in the ears. But even the massed energy channeled from all the ship's fusion generators was not enough to stabilize the force field.
Cracks shot through the red semispace bubble like a dark spider web and spread rapidly. The interval fire broke through the structural cracks and struck the ultra-hardened steel of the hull armor.
The ship rocked. A monstrous cracking drowned out the din of the storage banks and impulse engines. The sound turned into thunderclaps of after-explosions as the hull armor was smashed and the five-dimensional impact front destroyed machinery, generators, and storage banks in the depths of the ship. Thore Bardon was violently shaken in his chair and desperately clung to the armrests as red warning diodes on his control console lit up one after another.
"Impulse engines one through six have failed!" Palanker exclaimed. "Primary and secondary storage banks destroyed ... Leaks on decks four, eight, twelve, and thirteen ... Weapons systems inactive ... Semispace field collapsing ... "
He stared at Bardon with wide eyes, and in his eyes could be seen the certainty of inevitable death.
I'm sorry, Bardon wanted to say. I'm sorry that I failed and disappointed you so terribly. But he was not able to say anything.
Smoke billowed from the ventilation shafts. Short circuits cracked and popped in the control consoles. The smell of burnt plastic and ozone filled the air. The howling of the storage banks had broken off. The roar of the impulse engines sank to a stuttering racket, then faded out entirely. Without propulsion, the KOLOSCH drifted through near-planet space, a disabled wreck, waiting for the death blow.
Bardon looked at the main vidscreen. The black spacesphere of the Beasts, enveloped in a paratron shield, filled a quarter of the monitor. It seemed to mock him, to scoff at all his vain efforts, to laugh at his presumption.
As though paralyzed, he sat there and waited for the end.
And when the next interval discharge struck the KOLOSCH, the heavy cruiser crumpled like a tin can and vanished in a blinding, fiery, nova-hot explosion. Thore Bardon's last thought was of his wife and children.
He would be reunited with them in death.
15
In the depths of the subterranean Suen base, in a room that adjoined the hall where the time machine stood, Levian Paronn sat bent over a communications console. Head the transcript of the audio recording that had come in a few minutes earlier from the departing KOLOSCH.
With its powerful filtering system, the heavy cruiser's on-board computer had been able to clean up the distorted recording of the words that the Beast in the red battlesuit had called out to them before fleeing into the cave.
What it had said was astonishing.
I am not one of the Beasts! I come from the future. There is a time teleporter in the mountain base ...
A Beast from the future that claimed to be different from others of its kind!
Shocked, Paronn read the transcript again and again, overwhelmed by the questions and conclusions implied by these few words.
And this was not only lip service, but backed up by actions. During its escape from the Suen base, the Beast had of course caused destruction, but had not injured or killed a single Lemurian. Moreover, according to the refugees' statements, it had fought on the side of the Lemurians in the city and eliminated several Beasts that had landed to slaughter everyone they found.
Nothing like this had ever happened in the long history of the war.
Paronn's thoughts raced. Did the arrival of this Beast from the future possibly mean that his planned expedition into the past would be crowned with success? That with his technical assistance in the opening phase of the war the Lemurians would strike back at the Beasts, and with such force that the enemy would have no other alternative but to make peace with them? Did this Beast possibly come to this era for that reason? To tell him of the peaceful future and reinforce his determination?
He swore under his breath.
If the Beast had come with peaceful intentions, he had committed a serious error by ordering the attack on it and driving it into the cave. He regretted that he had received the audio transcript so late. How tempting was the thought of learning something about the future from first hand, about the success or failure of his fateful mission ...
Of course, it could also be a trick.
One last deception by the Beasts to sabotage this mission. A calculated intervention from the future in the present, just as he wanted to intervene in the past from the present. But even that could mean that the time expedition would end in triumph.
There was only one way to find out. He had to take the Beast prisoner and interrogate it, even if that meant many members of the base's crew would die in the attempt.
Paronn found himself nodding without realizing it.
The Beast's knowledge, the potential information about the future and the past, must not be lost in the atom fire. It could be of decisive importance for the mission.
He unconsciously touched the chest area of his gray protective suit, under which the egg-shaped cell activator bulged. Four other examples of the life-giving device were tucked securely in an inner pocket of his suit. He had built them with the greatest of difficulty using the construction data provided by the Twelfth Hero,. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, the work was not yet finished. He anxiously wondered if he would be able to complete the modules in the past, even if the required materials and equipment would be available to him there.
Once more he asked himself why Vehraáto had granted him eternal life. The Cell Activator must be of crucial importance for the great, mysterious mission that the Twelfth Hero had entrusted to him. But how should he use the Activator if he traveled to the year 6290 d.T. to pass on the technical data for modern warships and weapon systems to the pre-war Lemurians? And why was the Hero convinced that he would need helpers as immortal as he was to carry out the mission?
Perhaps the Beast in the red battlesuit knew the answers to these questions or could at least provide some clues that would solve the mystery.
Paronn was about to activate the communications console and make contact with the base control center when the door to the room slid to aside with a hiss and Merhan Velsath burst in. Panic distorted the scientific assistant's wrinkled face. Beneath the flowing shock of gray hair, naked fear shone in his eyes.
"The KOLOSCH ... " he gasped. "It's just been destroyed, Technad! A Beast ship is approaching the base. We are lost ... lost ... "
Paronn felt icy fear run down his back. He needed a moment to absorb what he had heard, to grasp what Velsath had said. The KOLOSCH destroyed ... the only means of transportation for the time machine that was available to them. While the atom fire ate its way onwards, inexorably and relentlessly.
"What should we do, Technad?" Velsath burst out. A droplet of sweat dripped from his forehead into his right eye and he blinked it away. "Is there anything at all that we can do?"
"How long will it take before the Beast ship reaches the base?" Paronn asked hoarsely.
"Only minutes, a few minutes."
Velsath trembled. Paronn knew why. His assistant had been a prisoner of the Beasts and tortured by them in unimaginable ways until he had been able to escape, thanks to a stroke of good luck. Velsath knew the cruelty of the old enemy from his own experience and he had a natural fear of falling in their hands again.
Paronn leaped to his feet. "Come with me," he ordered brusquely.
The two men raced out of the room. The wide, high-ceilinged corridor that led to the time machine hall was filled with crates and containers with the individual components of the disassembled machine. From the hall came the rattling of tools, a muffled pounding, and tense voices. The dismantling work was proceeding quickly under Ruun Lasoth's leadership.
Paronn briefly considered reassembling the time machine and using it to escape, but dismissed the thought at once. As Delaine Hogh had said, there was no one in the station who could operate the machine. Besides, they would not be able to put it back together before the Beast ship reached the base.
They ran down the corridor to the nearest intersection, turned off into another tunnel, and arrived at the massive armored steel door that blocked the entrance to the base control center. It slid to the side with a pneumatic hiss as the two men approached, and allowed them entry into the large control room.
